Episode 1.1

Episode 1.1

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Episode #1.1 is the first episode of the first season of Humans. It first premiered on June 14, 2015 in the U.K and June 28, 2015 in the U.S. The episode was written by show creators Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley, and directed by Sam Donovan. The episode was watched by 5.47 million people in the UK and 1.73 million people in the U.S. It received mostly positive reviews.

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Set in the near future, with the Synths – synthetic humans- invented, they have taken over many of the usual tasks many would not wish to do. They are robots who resemble people in every way beyond having emotions and are seen as an ideal workforce.

Joe Hawkins buys a very pretty Synth that looks like a woman, due to his wife’s absence in the busy household. He doesn’t consult her, so when wife Laura returns home, she feels displaced and cast off. She also complains that this will confuse the three children – Mattie, Toby and Sophie-, because before this incident the parents did not agree with the Synths in their house. But Sophie and Toby get to like her and name her Anita, though Mattie is jealous of her.
In a flashback, five weeks earlier, a group including a human – Leo- and four Synths – Max, Niska, Fred and Anita- is hiding in the forest. Everyone except Leo and Max is abducted and taken away into London.

Fred now works on a platation as a normal Synth, but Prof. Edwin Hobb realises that he is different, and he takes him in for investigation.

Prof. George Millican’s outdated Synth called Odi malfunctions and knocks down a woman. George is ordered to get rid of him, but he now sees Odi as his son, so he seeks to protect him.

On 14 June 2015 in the UK, the episode garnered 5.465 million viewers on Channel 4 and 0.655 million viewers on its timeshift service. It was the highest-rated show on the channel that week. A total of 6.814 million viewers watched the show including recorded views.[1] In the U.S., the episode aired on 28 June 2015 and received 1.73 million viewers.[2]

Humans had a successful premiere, both in the U.K (Channel 4) and in the U.S (AMC)

U.K: The Humans episode premiere in the U.K was Channel 4's biggest drama premiere in over 20 years.

Total Viewers Consolidated: 6.1 million

U.S: Humans premiere on AMC was popular in the U.S but was only 30% of the U.K's total viewers.

Brandon Nowalk of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B, describing most of the adaptation changes from Real Humans as "inexplicable" and the final scene as "a plea to please keep watching".[3] Neil Midgley of Forbes said that the episode didn't "[reach] Blade Runner standards of greatness", but "offered a pretty good start". Midgley described it as "rather beautifully put together too", although he commented, "Humans wasn't perfect. Some of the dialogue needed declunking and, for me, the incidental music was a bit too obviously futuristic-spooky-woo-woo."[4]

Morgan Jeffery of Digital Spy said that the pilot was a "remarkable success", praising the "comprehensively brilliant" cast and "plausible" world created by the writers.[5] Matt Fowler of IGN rated the episode 7.6 out of 10, calling it "a good start" but noting that the show was "rushing into the A.I. territory at the expense of some of the excellent subtleties featured in the other stories".[6] Neela Debnath of Express complimented the "convincingly creepy" acting, described the episode as a "less bleak" version of Black Mirror and said the series was "likely to do very well."[7]